An exhaustive report (176 pages in PDF form here), commissioned jointly by the RAC Foundation and the UK Petroleum Industry Association (bolded on purpose here), was released just days ago. It’s focus is outlined rather precisely by its title “Powering Ahead: The Future of Low Carbon Cars and Fuels.”

The report covers all sorts of aspects related to low carbon vehicle and alternative fuels in the UK and we’re certainly not going to bore you with all those details. Instead, we picked one section of interest and present it here mostly in screen captured images from the RAC report.

First, some background is in order.

The report says plug-in vehicles sales in the European Union in 2011 hit 11,000 units and says “electro-mobility” is firmly on track. According to the report, registrations of vehicles with traditional combustion engines will fall by 2020, while registrations of electric vehicles will increase by 7 percent

The report does say that consumers find plug-in vehicle to be too expensive and that even subsidies have failed to boost sales to levels some optimistically predicted they be at by now.

“Sales of electric cars are set to fall far short of official expectations. Electric vehicles remain a controversial subject.”

Remember who commissioned the report?

Regardless, there are a few highlights from the report, including that sales of plug-in vehicles in the UK are predicted to hit 200,000 units annually by 2020 and that bit by bit, electrified vehicles will gain market share. Now is when we turn to those screen captured graphics from the RAC’s report. They’re self-explanatory, we think. So, here we present them with no further comment.

Now’s the time to comment away. As we see it, despite the negatives found throughout the report, a 20 to 50 percent share in just 17 years is definitely what we’d consider success. Heck, even 10 percent by 2020 would represent obvious progress. What’s your take?